Slave
by Spyro395
Summary: A rewrite of my first story that I wrote awhile ago, with slight differences. Ben is a slave to hive known as the Western Fang. He serves the serpents by doing duties that they don't even give to the drones. Yet he harbors a secret that even he is unaware of and the path he is thrust upon can lead him to safety, or can lead to despair and horror.
1. Chapter 1

A lone figure sat down against the wall of one of the numerous dark tunnels of the hive, the sound of water dripping in the distance. It was so dark that he could barely see the back of his hand in front of his face. He dropped his hand into his lap with a sigh as he heard one of the serpent drones making its way towards him. The drone stopped in front of the figure and waited as the man stood up with a slight bow towards the serpent.

'Come slave, you have more work to do for the hive.' The words echoed silently inside of the man's head. The serpent turned away from the human and crawled on all fours down one side of the tunnel. The man followed the serpent obediently, following the sounds of the serpent's claws scratching the floor of the tunnel. They traveled without speaking for several meters, stopping at a cave in. Climbing onto one of the rocks, the drone sat down.

'You are to remove these stones from this tunnel and place them outside the main hive entrance.' The drone hissed as he stared at the man with his eye-less dark skull. The man bowed slightly to the serpent, as expected of him, and the serpent crawled off the rocks and disappeared into the darkness. A sigh escaped from the human as he walked over to the nearest stone in the pile. He could barely see the stones but he had learned a long time ago to rely on his sense of touch more than his sense of sight. He wriggled his hands underneath the heavy stone and hefted it up from the ground with a groan escaping him. He slowly walked back down the path towards the hive's entrance, while keeping to the tunnels big enough to fit what he was carrying. He counted his steps as he walked, keeping track of where he was and when to turn. He strained under the stone that was easily as heavy as a drone was, yet he did not stop to rest. When his arms started to burn and protest the weight, the tunnel started to get brighter. He was able to see the smooth floor that he walked on and the rough walls to his side. It wasn't long after that he walked past the exit, once he was outside he found a place near the entrance to place his stone. He let the stone fall with a _thump_ as it hit the dirt. Shaking his arms out, he took the time to look around the outside world for the first time in awhile. The outside world was vastly different than the hive, the colors were vibrant and breathtaking compared to the darkness of the hive. Yet it was almost too bright for him after all the time he spent in the dark tunnels of the hive. He reached up to his face and rubbed his eyes. Squinting to cut out some of the light that bombarded his eyes, he made his way back down the dirt path and back into the hive to continue with his work.

The sun was setting by the time he had finished with the work, carrying the stones he could and pushing the stones he couldn't carry. Once he finished a drone came to him to let him know that he could go back to his room. He didn't wait around for the drone to change his mind and give him something else to do. He held his left hand against the wall to guide himself to his room. It didn't take him long to find his room, or what could be called a room. It was a small cave that existed before the hive, too small for use by the hive, yet it was big enough for him to relax in relative comfort. The serpents had brought him some sort of soft material for use as bedding, and they even brought him different human materials to keep what little he owned out of the way. He walked over to his "chest", which was nothing more than a few pieces of wood glued together with a sticky substance, and opened it to reveal a few items and knick knacks he had collected over the years from the countless people who had died inside the hive. He reached inside a pulled out a tattered notebook, its cover used to have pictures on it but had faded away before he got his hands on it, all that remained of the pictures were a faint outline. He also grabbed a small pencil from the chest before he closed it and walked over to his bed and laid down. From where he laid down he was able to touch the wall that had some sort of lichen growing on it, when he touched the lichen it glowed a bright greenish color, giving him enough light to read and write and to even see things better in the room. He opened his notebook open to a blank page and lifted his pencil to write.

'I don't know how long I have been down in the hive, Weeks? Months? Years? I can't say. All I know is that I am the last human in the hive, the last slave for the serpents. Thankfully they use other creatures for breeding, so I have no fear of that, but working as their slave was no easy path even if they allowed him some form of freedom. Everyday they have me doing jobs that they would rather not do, such as clearing tunnels or removing the bodies that can't be used for the hive. It sucks but it's better than being used as breeding stock, I suppose anyway. In the end this might be my last journal entry, I am running out of things to write, and this is the last page in this book. Without any more human hosts my chance of scavenging a notebook is slim to none. If anyone finds this book, know that I am still kicking after these last words.'

He closed the notebook and placed it at the side of his bed. He pulled the thin scrap of cloth he used as blanket over his body and rolled over to face away from the light source. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into the abyss of sleep.

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Hey guys, I want to say sorry to everyone who has been waiting these years for the updates. Yet you guys will have to wait just a little longer to find out what happened in the story. Though on the bright side the story will have more details and I will be paying more attention to grammer and spelling.

Also I want to give a shout out to my roommate who is helping me with editing and such, Thanks man.I will have the next chapter done by next Saturday, so I will have a whole week to get the chapter down as long as I do not have any essays dumped on me, yay college life.

For my final words of goodbye for a week, Enjoy, Respond, Do what you like!


	2. Chapter 2

'Ben' The figure named Ben rolled in his sleep as the darkness whispered in his ears. 'Come on Ben, time to wake up' The voice came again along with the prodding from a long black tail, it moved carefully to avoid piercing Ben's skin. The owner of the tail sighed as the boy clung to sleep.

'I swear you can be a pain sometimes' The voice sighed but it couldn't hide the amusement that came with the words. 'Ben if you don't wake up I will have no choice but to crush you' The voice warned, which in response Ben only shoved his head into the soft bedding in an attempt to block out the voice. In the darkness the owner of the voice shook her head slowly at his attempts to stay asleep.

'You asked for it Ben' She hissed quietly as she moved closer to the bed and promptly sat on top of the sleeping form. She applied more weight slowly, yet she was careful enough to not crush the boy under her weight. It didn't take long for the Ben to start to squirm and try to escape.

"Gahh!" Ben grunted as he finally woke up. "Alright! Alright! I'm awake now!" His voice muffled by the bedding. He tried to roll over in an attempt to throw the extra weight off of him. After struggling for a bit, he managed to get his hands under him-self and push the extra weight off of him. Ben panted slightly to catch his breath while the serpent who had woken him up sat on the ground quietly giggling. Once the air filled his lungs he sat up to face the merry serpent, a grin finding its way on his face. "Of course it was you Lorana, what time is it anyway?" He asked as he turned slightly to slid his hand across the moss covered wall, causing them to glow and give himself some light to see. He let his gaze fall onto the large and slender serpent who had awoken him, her miniature crown shining light from the glowing moss.

'The sun still has not risen yet, but mother has a task for you.' Lorana informed him.

"A task this early? Man, what is the Queen tasking me with this time?" Ben asked as he rubbed the sand out of his eyes.

'She told me that she requires you to go with two serpents towards an old hive, some sort of scouting mission.' Lorana told him as she got up and walked over to sit next to him. 'She had sent a few scouts to the hive to see if it was of any use to us, but the scouting party was killed before they could even get into the hive.' She paused, turning her crescent shaped head towards Ben before speaking. 'The Queen saw that the hive was tainted by the presence of humans. My mother does not wish to risk the lives of any more of the hive, not with the the other hives getting restless, so she wants you to go to do the scouting.'

"So in other words the Queen is sending me to my death" Ben complained "But I guess it's better than sitting here and waiting to die slowly" he shrugged as he said that. It wasn't like he had to worry about starving or disease, he was fed two times a day and with him being the last human slave in the hive, it became rare for him to catch a cold or worse, especially since the serpents couldn't even carry diseases or viruses. Yet even with that kind of death out of the way, he could still die from being overworked, being crushed in some fashion, or if a serpent got bored and decided to hurt him badly. It wasn't a question of if he would die, but more of a when.

The female serpent shook her head slightly, a gesture unused in the Xenomorph society, but it was something she had picked up from her friend. 'You're being a little too pessimistic Ben. Look on the bright side of things, at least you still have me as your friend.' She tried cheering the boy up, she hated seeing him upset.

"True, I am glad to have you as my friend" He leaned against Lorana and relaxed at the touch of her cool skin. "Still it's hard to be positive about all this, it's not like I have had a good life, all things considered." He spoke softly with a slight shrug.

They sat in silence while leaning against each other for some time, sunlight slowly filtered in through the small hole that served as a window. When the weak light reached the foot of his bed, Ben forced himself to his feet and made his way towards his locker. Kneeling in front of it, he open the lid and grabbed a simple leather pack filled with a few things he would need in case he was allowed outside the hives borders, which admittedly was a rare occasion. He opened the bag as well and rummaged through it before his fingers found what he was looking for, a small wooden block. An old switchblade he had found during the last harvest. Useless against the serpents, whose exoskeleton was too hard for such a small blade to pierce. Yet even though he couldn't use it against them, he could still use it for other tasks like cutting cloth and other such tasks. Reassured that it was still there, he released it from his grip so he could stuff the bag with most of his clothing.

"Well looks like I'm all packed up to go" He told Lorana as he slipped the pack onto his back. He didn't really want to go, preferring to stay and relax with his friend who actually treated him with kindness, but instead he had to travel with two serpents who would probably let him die out in the real world.

'Stay safe out there Ben, make sure you come back' Lorana said softly as she walked on all fours towards Ben and pressed the dome of her head into the small of his back. He turned around towards her and knelt down to give her a hug.

"I will Lorana, I will" He whispered before letting her go and made his way out of his room and towards the entrance of the hive.

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Hey guys and gals! Sorry for taking so long, I got slammed with three essays from three different classes and my English class likes to give us an essay right after we finished one. I only got the chance to work on this story recently. So please enjoy it! Also please leave some reviews about this story, I like to get the input of my readers, helps me gauge if this story is something I should continue and also allows me to take in any suggestions and possibly twist those suggestions into the story. One last thing before I go, i remember someone asking for some BenxLorana shipping, while not making it official for now, it might change, or it might not, but here is a little taste of it.

Enjoy! Review! Do what you like!


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